After everything that had happened, I had no idea who I was— or who I could say I was. Evidently during psychosis, I had given a different name to police and acted opposite to all my beliefs. Isn’t who we are defined by the things we would never do? I still cared about people’s feelings and believed in equality, but the screenshots said otherwise. Which one is the real me? How can I claim to be someone when I espoused the inverse?
I clung to my old performance reviews, trying to piece together a self.
For all my flaws, someone out there thought I was a great person. They even went as far as calling me an inspiration. So am I the kind and caring person in the review, or am I the person from the police report, who shouts offensive things naked in Seattle? How can both things be true at once?
I looked nostalgically at the old photos of when I promoted Amazon on a college campus. I wanted those students to have the same magical internship experience I did. My smile was sincere. I couldn’t escape it, Amazon was a core part of who I was.
But no matter my identity, I still had to face the consequences for what I did.